Life
1960- ; b. 20 Aug., Belfast; ed. St Mary’s Grammar School, Magherafelt,
Co. Derry; B.A. Hons from TCD (Dublin), 1983; MA (with distinction), University
of East Anglia, 1985, where she attended Malcolm Bradbury’s creative
writing school; first published by David Marcus in ‘Irish Writing’
[Irish Press] while in college; winner of Hennessy Award, 1980; international
attention followed Hidden Symptoms, novella published in Faber’s
First Fictions, Introduction 9 (1986); winner of Rooney Prize for
Irish Literature, 1987; m. Harry Clifton, poet; travelled to Italy for
three years; issued The Birds of the Innocent Wood (1988), winner
of the Somerset Maugham Award, 1989; published Remembering Light and
Stone (1992) dealing with the life of a woman on the continent following
a crisis in love; also Nothing is Black (1994) and One by One
in the Darkness (1996), winner of Listowel Kerry Ingredients Book
Award; shortlisted for Orange Prize for Fiction for women; adjudicated
1995 Fish Short Story Competition; lives Toomebridge, Co. Antrim; issued
Authenticity (2002), a study of three tangled artists’s lives; elected to Aosdana, Nov. 1997.
ATT DIL
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Works
Fiction, Hidden Symptoms (Boston & NY: Atlantic Monthly
1986), Do., rep. (London: Faber 1988); The Birds of the Innocent
Wood (London: Faber 1988); Remembering Light and Stone (London:
Faber 1992; rep. 1993); Nothing is Black (London: Faber 1994),
139[151]pp.; One by One in the Darkness (London: Faber 1996), 188[192]pp.;
Authenticity (Faber & Faber 2002), 385pp.
Miscellaneous, That Childhood Country (London: Pan 1993) [rep. edn.]; Introduction to Kate O’Brien, The Ante-Room [rep.] (London: Virago 1996). Also reviews of Kathleen Ferguson, The Maid’s Tale, and Aisling Foster, Safe in the Kitchen, in "Summer Books", Fortnight Review [Belfast] (July-Aug. 1994), p.18.
Criticism
Interview, ‘Darks thoughts from Abroad’, Books Ireland (Summer
1996), pp.157.
Geraldine Higgins, ‘“A Place to Bring Anger and Grief”: Deirdre Madden’s Northern Irish Novels’, in Bill Lazenblatt, ed., Writing Ulster [‘Northern Narratives’], No. 6 (1999), pp.143-59.
Gerry Smyth, The Novel and the Nation: Studies in the New Irish Fiction (London: Pluto Press 1997) [on Hidden Symptoms], pp.117-20; see other notices under Commentary [infra].
Andrea Ashworth, review of Nothing is Black (Faber 1994),
(Times Literary Supplement, 8 July 1994).
Rory Brennan reviews Nothing is Black (Faber 1994), in Books Ireland (Sept. 1994).
Maxine Jones, review of One by One in the Darkness (Faber 1996), in Tribune Magazine, 26th May 1996, p.20..
Patricia Craig, ‘A Cabinet in Co. Clare’, review of One by One in the Darkness (Faber 1996), in Times Literary Supplement (24 May 1996, p.26.
Carlo Gebler, ‘Specifically personal’, review of One by One in the Darkness (Faber 1996), [?Fortnight Review, q. iss.], p.36.
Anne Fogarty, review of Authenticity, in The Irish Times (17 Aug. 2002, Weekend, p.8.
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Notes
Dermot Bolger, Contemporary Irish Fiction (Picador 1993),
gives excerpt from Remembering Light and Stone [1992].
Books in Print (1994), Hidden Symptoms (Boston/NY: Atlantic Monthly 1986; London: Faber 1988); The Birds of the Innocent Wood (London: Faber 1988), Somerset Maugham Award; Remembering Light and Stone (London: Faber 1992, 1993); That Childhood Country (Pan rep. 1993); Nothing is Black (Faber 1994); Food, Home and Society (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1900), 387pp; Better Homemaking (Gill & Macmillan 1984).
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)